Over past four years, thousands of teams have participated in our Real World Design Challenge Aviation competition.

This year we are adding a new Challenge. It is focused on surface transportation and automotive design. Students will design a motor coach for enhanced fuel efficiency.

This Challenge is in addition to the Aviation Challenge. We will always having an Aviation Challenge. We are creating this new Challenge to offer an additional topic for interested students.

The new Surface Transportation Challenge will start this year with a pilot competition. We are allowing 50 teams to sign up. Registration will be first come first serve until all the spots are full. The pilot is only for teams that are not already participating in the Aviation Challenge. This year you can only participate in one or the other.

Teams are welcome to sign up from anywhere in the United States. For the pilot year, there will not be state competitions like there are in the Aviation Challenge. There will just be one large national competition. And judging will be done virtually.

The winning team from this competition will get a free trip to Washington, DC to present their work at the National Finals in April. All participating teams will get the same suite of professional tools that all Real World Design Challenge teams get, which are valued at one million dollars per team.

The new Challenge will kick off January 16th. I hope you take advantage of this great opportunity!